In June (winter) of 2015, 9 of us completed the Hollyford Track, taking 5 days to Martin’s Bay. At that point, 3 of our group left via small plane back to Gunn’s Camp and the remaining walked another 5 days on the Pyke-Big Bay Route to create a loop of 10 days back to our parked cars.

We did this in the face of dire warnings from various people about hiking in winter in Fiordland and were quite prepared to have to backtrack or wait a few days in case of inclement weather. But as it turned out we enjoyed near perfect weather conditions (for NZ anyway!) with the added advantage of hardly any sandflies because it was winter!

I found the Hollyford to be fun to do for a big group as the track is mainly easy to follow, reasonably safe and hard (not impossible) to injure yourself on! Plus nice big huts. The only problem was that it was a bit boring unless you like a lot of bush walking. Maybe I’m becoming a bit spoilt after so many previous tramps of endless mountain views!

Since there were 9 of us and Jenni was bringing her Mum’s new RAV, we did the figures and worked out it was cheaper to hire an extra 2 rental cars for the trip than for all of us to pay for private shuttles, with the advantage of having the cars waiting for us regardless of what day we got off the track. This ended up working very well as the cars were cheap due to it being a non tourist season.

So we all met up in Te Anau and on Sunday 31st May 2015, we drove off towards Gunn’s Camp. Two carloads went early as we wanted to walk the 3 hours return in the morning to see Lake Marion which is on the Lower Hollyford Road, just before Gunn’s camp.

Day 1 – 2½ hours to Hidden Falls Hut

Next it was off to Gunn’s camp just down the road.  Phil was leaving his car there as he, Leanne and Kim were all flying back to Gunn’s Camp from Martin’s Bay.  The rest of us were walking back so we were leaving our cars at the track end.

Gunn’s camp is an eclectic little campsite right on the river that has an airstrip, cabins, camping sites, a tiny shop and offers car storage and track pick ups. (Dan’s photo)

Rather nice even though it was over full by 2 or 3 extra people.   Usually this doesn’t matter as everyone just squashes up and makes room.  So in the hut this night with us were a lovely father and son from the USA on a bonding Hunting trip and a wonderful interesting old Kiwi hunter/trapper who has a permanent camp not far from the hut but who likes to come up and chat and drink the beer of the USA Hunter and son.   All good.    But there was also what can only be described as ….. the Mother From Hell with her two reasonably ghastly, very small, but very loud, opinionated children.

The first sign of trouble was when she met the fastest member of our team and found out there were 9 of us.  She said to her children, “Quick run!  We’ll get the best beds!”  Of course, she could be imbuing good hut manners and traditional etiquette in her children by getting the two tiny little squabs to share a mattress ….. but no, not to be.  Why teach manners or consideration for others in our dog-eat-dog world?

Then in a one room, 12 bunk hut filled with 15 humans, Dan decides to make pleasant conversation with the little family.   Big mistake.  In all fairness, Dan has been known to really put his proverbial foot in it, but this time, he was not to blame.   He didn’t say anything too suspicious or sinister like, “Hey kids, wanna check our my lolly collection in the woodshed?”  No, nothing like that.

The boy and girl were squabbling (which they did fairly consistently for the next 12 hours, less a brief respite when they slept) over chocolate pieces and Dan gave the sage advice to the boy that he should let his sister have the chocolate if he wants a long happy life as “Chocolate is for girls” or something like that.

This resulted in the mother blasting him for such disgusting bigoted woman hating speech and quickly ushered her children to the approximately 75% of the bunk space that they were hogging instructing them to ignore the vile pervert in the corner.  She then muttered dire warnings of safety to her children as apparently we were likely to all embark on a giant drinking binge.

Naturally more than a night in her company would cause most of us to become alcoholics and that option was already looking really good … but sadly we were carrying 10 day packs, unless there is alcohol in Betadine or you count the Meths Leanne carries for her blisters, we were a dry group.

It took a little while for the hut to recover from all this but we eventually got on with it and had a great old night with the hunters and their stories.  Between the hunter’s son coughing all night (he was sick as a dog, poor kid), the brat kids squabbling and Phil, Rob, Dan and the hunter all snoring, I may have been the only one who slept really well all night!

Day 2 – 3½ hrs to Alabaster Hut – fine weather, rain at night.

An easy day today along a graded track with our group the only ones heading in this direction (phew).

We start the day with the obligatory Group Shot!

Day 3 – 6 hours to Demon Trail hut in fine weather.

To be continued…